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Using Your Podcast to Break Taboos: Lessons from Japan · Your Mic

• 0:00
  Welcome back to your mic my name is Freddy Cruz founder of speak podcasting and today it's a solo rant about
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  Johatsu
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  Japan's evaporated people
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  This is not a myth
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  It's not a trend these are real people vanishing overnight ditching their old lives for a shot at anonymity
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  Assisted by night mover companies these are people who who said restart
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  eh
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  Don't mind if I do
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  And here's the kicker because I do have a point. There is a kicker
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  The phenomenon is so powerful because it's so specific and we are going to tie the fundamentals of
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  Johatsu into your podcast
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  That's add a little context. I'm a sucker for
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  Random stories on Instagram. You know those carousel reels with a really well-written hook
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  I fall victim all the time and it doesn't matter what time of the day
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  It could be at seven o'clock in the morning
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  It could be like at 9.30 after I finished a three mile run
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  It could be at 11.31. I think I'm done for the night and I'm in bed and I'm like oh just one more instant snack
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  Well, that's how I discovered Johatsu. All right ultra specific stories
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  Hit hard
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  Johatsu isn't just
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  Eh people move away sometimes
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  Johatsu is
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  Certain communities within a certain block very very
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  Hyper-specific now the lesson here is that the more you narrow down your story
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  Your podcast the more it snaps people to attention
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  It's not good enough to have a podcast about health and fitness
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  What if you are a health and fitness coach who helps diabetic female patients in their fifties who live
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  in Texas
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  That is the kind of specificity that hits really hard when it comes to your podcast and really diving in and sharing stories
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  With the world and helping your listeners see more themselves hear more themselves in your episodes
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  And now we're on to taboo
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  Who doesn't love a little taboo as long as it doesn't have anything to do with my life right wrong
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  No, no, no
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  Johatsu
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  grows out of unspeakable pain think about some of the things that make you feel
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  embarrassed
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  debt
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  Failure
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  Maybe it's a career that didn't take off. Maybe it's not being able to have kids
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  This is the kind of stuff that nobody touches at the holiday dinner table
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  Well, what of your show was exactly the kind of pain that people avoid
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  Highlight the forbidden corners of your listeners world and maybe not forbidden
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  But what if these are are things that are there still kind of cultural taboo in 2025
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  I want to give an example a very specific example of
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  Speak podcasting's longest podcast production client that is the rose their podcast well
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  It says it in the name. Let's talk about your breasts
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  20 years ago even 30 40 50 years ago. This was not something that people would discuss
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  In polite company in fact Dorothy Gibbons
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  Who is the CEO and co-founder
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  Would say that people didn't even want to talk about breasts like use the actual word
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  breasts, but here we are in 2025 and the rose is breaking
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  Those cultural norms they're breaking down those barriers and helping women and men because men do get breast cancer
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  But they're helping breast cancer patients and survivors break down those barriers so that when
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  When somebody listens to an episode of let's talk about your breasts
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  They can hear themselves in that story the rose is really shifting the conversation around what is
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  What makes people more willing to have these tougher conversations? That's because women
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  I've learned have a tendency to not put their health first because they're busy taking care of their families
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  So if you make your show about what people tend to avoid
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  Are you more likely to grow an audience and speaking of audiences
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  What if instead of trying to build mass appeal?
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  You build for the few is that smallest viable audience
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  How small can you go
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  But still remain sustainable still remain relevant you go deep you want impact you stop trying to relate to everybody
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  Speak directly to a tiny group like breast cancer patients and survivors and their families
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  Or let's take the example of another one of our longest clients the national museum of funeral history
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  and that is the final curtain never closes and
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  Trying to reframe the conversation that everybody has around death
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  Because it's something that you and I and everybody around us is eventually going to experience we are going to die
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  and so it's
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  it's focusing that podcast
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  around
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  things that are relevant to the topic and
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  Extracting stories and relating to people in a way they get to shift their frame for
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  What they previously thought about that topic at hand
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  But what if we
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  Flipped the johatsu script and instead of instead of disappearing
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  We go all in
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  Now as as we mentioned at the top of the episode Japan
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  They've got this thing is called johatsu
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  People disappear with the help of night mover companies
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  They ditch their old lives for a shot at being anonymous in the in society
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  But in johatsu pain means
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  Erasing yourself and in podcasting
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  What if the pain you used
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  Was spoken out loud
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  shouted even in an effort to bring people together
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  rather than
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  Running away
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  And disappearing all all at once
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  What if you were to urge people to get loud about
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  Their hidden struggles and turn that shame into connection like
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  Yeah, that's me
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  I can totally relate
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  You have those community meetups you meet on zoom maybe
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  Perhaps it's a small event of about 20 to 30 people
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  Maybe it's a monthly party
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  Uh quarterly happy hour
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  You flip the script and instead of running away
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  You run toward the thing that makes you
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  Uncomfortable that you know
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  Might just make your listeners uncomfortable at first
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  But then they get where you're going
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  Because you're not just talking about uncomfortable things for the sake of talking about uncomfortable things
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  You're talking about these uncomfortable things because you
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  Have a message that you want to share with the world you have a story that is yearning yearning to get out
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  If you have an interview format or if it's co-hosted with a colleague that shares the same journey as you all about
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  Going toward
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  That difficult conversation
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  Instead of avoiding that difficult conversation
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  So in conclusion we got to be obsessed with local and honest
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  Find your communities johatsu
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  Who are the people that are running from something that is really hard to talk about put its name in lights
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  Go there
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  Yes
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  Go there
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  That is how you're going to build a loyal
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  podcast audience
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  Hey, look if you have any questions about johatsu and how you can integrate some of these mindsets some of these uh
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  Tactics into your podcast. I would love to chat
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  Hit me up freddy with a why at speakpodcasting.com
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  spke podcasting.com
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  And if you are listening to this before
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  October 10th and 11th you and I can chat in person at speak fest 2025. We're going to have
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  About 15 different activities. We're talking workshops. We're talking panels. We're talking keynote speeches
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  We're going to have over 20 podcasters who are going to be teaching
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  You all the things that they learn along the way during their podcast journey. We're going to have workshops about AI in your brand
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  We're going to have workshops about crafting a killer podcast interview building a podcast community keynote speeches
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  About social media marketing and building a niche podcast all that and more at speakpodcasting.com slash speak fest
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  2025. That's where you're going to get your tickets for speak fest
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  Happening at the national museum of funeral history. See you there